Some 2.5 million years ago, early humans survived on a paltry diet of plants. As the human brain expanded, however, it required more substantial nourishment - namely fat and meat - to sustain it. This drove ...

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and their international collaborators have developed a novel fluorescence microscopy technique that for the first time shows where and ...

Using a computer game, a research group at Aarhus University has found a way to gain deeper insight into the human thought process. The results have amazed the research director, who has discovered a kind ...

Can we expect a time when aircraft will be directly controlled by the human brain? And what about mind-controlled drones? Imagine that, using an EEG (electroencephalogram) cap tracking neural activity, a ...

Why do so many of us cry at the movies? Why do we flinch when Rocky Balboa takes a punch, duck when the jet careens toward the tower in "Airplane," and tap our toes to the dance numbers in "Chicago" or "Moulin ...

The size of the human brain expanded dramatically during the course of evolution, imparting us with unique capabilities to use abstract language and do complex math. But how did the human brain get larger ...

Japanese mobile carrier Softbank said Tuesday it will incorporate artificial intelligence technology from IBM into its empathetic robot Pepper that will be available to Japanese consumers around midyear.

The human brain's complexity makes it extremely challenging to study—not only because of its sheer size, but also because of the variety of signaling methods it uses simultaneously. Conventional neural ...

If in the future electrodes are inserted into the human brain - either for research purposes or to treat diseases - it may be appropriate to give them a 'coat' of nanowires that could make them less irritating for the brain ...

The ascetic and moralizing movements that spawned the world's major religious traditions—Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity—all arose around the same time in three different regions, ...

When people hear another person talking to them, they respond not only to what is being said—those consonants and vowels strung together into words and sentences—but also to other features of that speech—the ...

Warfare not only hastened human technological progress and vast social and political changes, but may have greatly contributed to the evolutionary emergence of humans' high intelligence and ability to work ...

Human brain

The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. Enclosed in the cranium, it has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times as large as the brain of a mammal with an equivalent body size. Most of the expansion comes from the cerebral cortex, a convoluted layer of neural tissue that covers the surface of the forebrain. Especially expanded are the frontal lobes, which are involved in executive functions such as self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought. The portion of the brain devoted to vision is also greatly enlarged in humans.

Brain evolution, from the earliest shrewlike mammals through primates to hominids, is marked by a steady increase in encephalization, or the ratio of brain to body size. The human brain has been estimated to contain 50–100 billion (1011) neurons[citation needed], of which about 10 billion (1010) are cortical pyramidal cells.[citation needed] These cells pass signals to each other via approximately 100 trillion (1014)[citation needed] synaptic connections.

In spite of the fact that it is protected by the thick bones of the skull, suspended in cerebrospinal fluid, and isolated from the bloodstream by the blood-brain barrier, the delicate nature of the human brain makes it susceptible to many types of damage and disease. The most common forms of physical damage are closed head injuries such as a blow to the head, a stroke, or poisoning by a wide variety of chemicals that can act as neurotoxins. Infection of the brain is rare because of the barriers that protect it, but is very serious when it occurs. More common are genetically based diseases[citation needed], such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and many others. A number of psychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia and depression, are widely thought to be caused at least partially by brain dysfunctions, although the nature of such brain anomalies is not well understood.